Taking Woodstock

This film could have become the ultimate mocking satire and at the same time a great comedy. The subject itself called for an ironic treatment, because the legend of Woodstock as one of the catalysts of the hippie movement was born as an unintended enchantment. Practically all the organizers and local residents saw the concert as a unique opportunity to get wasted the American way and any ideals were completely foreign to them. Thanks to incredible incompetence and underestimation of the situation, one of the biggest logistical failures in human history occurred. It was only by sheer luck and also because a significant portion of the participants were still recovering from previous partying and marijuana smoking, that a tragedy similar to Altamont, which happened three months later, did not occur. Although Ang Lee started off well, he soon deviated toward such a harmless celebration of the Woodstock legend and flower ideals that humor, let alone satire, soon disappears and the director simply strokes the hippie legend on the head, failing to live up to my initially high expectations. If there is something the film truly portrays well, it is the loosening of sexual prudery in the second half of the 60s. Many hippie ideals were lost, but this generation was much more open-minded and brought greater freedom to women, homosexuals, and basically everyone. It barely earns three stars, because the subject could have been used much more effectively. Overall impression: 50%. (30.12.2012)